The importance of religion in New Mexico is manifest in this collection of essays, the proceedings of a 1997 symposium that represents the work of twenty-three of the region's most noted scholars and writers. Among the topics they cover are church architecture, the role of missionaries in colonisation, the role of the church in education, the contributions of the Penitentes, and the work of specific orders, particularly the Jesuits and the Franciscans. Local devotion to such figures as St. Michael, La Guadalupana, La Conquistadora, and Nuestra Seora de Beln is addressed in several essays, as well as the work of such historic leaders as Padre Martnez and Archbishop Lamy. In addition to its importance for historians, this book will be of interest to genealogists. It includes an essay on sacramental records and the preservation of New Mexico family genealogies from the colonial era to the present.